Wherein hair-washing time gets a dollop of fun
Monday, August 07, 2006

Mamakaze has two little girls who love their baths, but at a certain point during their sudsing sessions, our efforts to clean the kiddos are met with no small measure of resistance. That point for both girls is the inevitable washing of the hair.

With Kidakaze, it’s a subtle sigh and the question, “Can I just put Ariel to bed?” followed by an extremely long and drawn-out mermaid bedtime ritual and an extremely short shampoo. With Totakaze, it’s the much more obvious thrashing and screeches of “Nee-nee-nee, Mama!” But regardless of the sophistication level, we are pretty sure that shampoo time is not a happy time.

We may not be able to change the fact that Totakaze’s precious hair will get wet or that Kidakaze will have to cease playing for three minutes, but with a fun-looking, brightly-colored dispenser, we can at least pretend that we think shampoo is super duper cool. We love the Wizard Lizard soap and shampoo dispenser($16.99 from Organize.com).

The bottle sticks easily onto the wall of a tub or shower with four suction cups, and soap, shampoo, or whatever else a clever mommy might put in such a bottle comes squirting playfully out of the lizard’s mouth. An automatic stopper prevents leaks even when the bottle is head-down. For mamas who want to color-code lizards full of soap, shampoo and conditioner all in the same tub, the dispenser also comes in three different colors.

It may be a stretch, but just as soap became much more exciting once we got the kind that looks like fingerpaint, we’re willing to bet the kids will be more receptive to purple “lizard spit” than their regular shampoo-from-a-bottle routine.